By that token, you are responsible for the genocide of the native Americans.
No, not at all. Native Americans were decimated under British and Spanish rule; by the time the US was founded, their population, culture, and society was already destroyed.
But you shouldn't fret about this as a British citizen either: while the British empire committed numerous crimes against humanity, the mass killing of Native Americans by European diseases was not something your government actually intended, so I wouldn't call it a genocide. If you want to beat yourself up over it, though, go right ahead; the British empire certainly has done enough other shitty and evil things for you to feel guilty about.
What are you doing to atone for your crime, NostalgiaForInfinity?
Europeans taking responsibility for deforestation isn't about "atonement", nor is it about something in the distant past. Europe continues to make the choice to keep forest levels at below 10% and use the rest of the land for other, more lucrative purposes; Europe could reforest to natural levels if it decided to and thereby return us to atmospheric carbon levels of rough the mid-20th century. That choice is something Europe should pay for.
Second, Europeans transformed those forests into economic and political power, something you still benefit from today. Since you reap the benefits, you should pay the price for it, the same as you demand from others. In different words, paying back your carbon debt, just like paying back your credit card debt, isn't about "atonement" it is about returning something you took.
We are paying the Russians. We don't want to do that.
Why not? The Russians are far less likely than a US corporation to be successful at corrupting our political process with bogus arguments about how giving them money will "create jobs" and "increase tax revenues" and they are cheap. And paying them something may keep them in politically in line and gives them something to feel proud of.
The Space Access Society, a group that advocates for government funded, commercially operated spacecraft, examined the annual fight between supporters of the heavy lift Space Launch System and supporters of the commercial crew program
They both sound like massive crony capitalism to me, so just cut them both.
Unfortunately, any numerical measure, whether GDP or happiness index or whatever, can be manipulated. And once it is used to measure the performance of government, politicians, and economies, it will be manipulated. For example, you can increase the GDP arbitrarily by simply turning traditionally non-economic exchanges (child care, food preparation, etc.) into economic ones.
If you wish to factor in things like pollution and CO2 emissions, you simply add them as negatives to productivity. If you wish to factor in things like pollution and CO2 emissions, you simply add them as negatives to productivity.
There is debate as to whether it is a negative at all. And a negative for who? CO2 emissions today cost us nothing. Maybe they'll have costs 50 years down the road, but how do you account for that? How do you account for the fact that some effects of CO2 only have costs contingent on other choices (such as people choosing to live in a flood zone)? Such calculations and estimates are meaningless; they simply reflect the pre-existing biases of the people making them.
The massive deforestation of the European continent (from 90% prehistoric to less than 10% today) has been a huge contributor to carbon in the atmosphere, both due to its initial release and due to its greatly reduced carbon capture over centuries. This is an inconvenient truth for Europeans, because if you take that into account, Europeans would have to massively reduce their carbon emissions in order to pay down their carbon debt. Naturally, Europeans prefer to ignore this massive historical carbon debt and instead pretend as if everybody started with a clean slate a decade or two ago; it's a massive economic and political game, and Europeans aren't playing fair.
Dirty energy is 'cheap' because the environmental and social costs are all but ignored by traditional economists.
Traditional economists are quite aware that externalities exist; they are simply honest enough to admit that they can't quantify them or who is actually bearing those costs. Progressive economists delude themselves into believing that they can quantify these costs, but in the end, they just end up being crony capitalists, forcefully extracting money from the population and giving it to politically favored corporations and sectors.
Climate change didn't 'cause' the drought, but it almost certainly had a hand in its record breaking ferocity.
That's pure speculation. The Middle East had massive climate swings long before fossil fuel use. So, for that matter, did the Americas. Those climate swings caused famine and mass migrations. There is not a shred of evidence that AGW is making things worse. In fact, by historical standards, famine across the world is lower than it has been for as long as we have good data to make comparisons.
The unprecedented "once in 10,000 years" drought in the fertile crescent prior to the "arab spring" was "the straw that broke the camel's back"
Even if that weren't just fiction, it's irrelevant. Syria's problem is that it is a pariah state with few economic and political freedoms; as a result, its people live in poverty and the nation doesn't have anything to trade. If Syria was an economically and politically free country, food wouldn't be a problem even if its entire domestic food production failed.
I mean, what you are saying, in effect, is that the rest of the world should pay massive amounts of money so that economically incompetent dictators can stay in power. If climate change actually does destabilize dictatorships and centrally planned economies because they are incapable of adapting as well as free market economies, all the better as far as I'm concerned.
At 3c/hr, how long will it take to pay for dirty energy's role in all that?
According to the IPCC report itself, the cost of mitigation is about the same as the cost of adaptation to climate change. But that's under their unusually pessimistic analysis and it's neglecting the fact that money we spend now is more valuable than money we spend a hundred years from now. So, even according to the IPCC, it won't pay for itself.
But, in fact, it will probably do a lot of harm. By reducing economic growth, it will make many countries less able to adapt to climate change, and by effectively subsidizing costly and bad energy technologies it will delay the development of better energy technologies.
The lack of political will, the courage to do the right thing despite negative personal consequence, is the hallmark of the modern, career politician. Don't you think term limits could fix that quite rapidly?
I don't see why. With term limits, politicians simply are going to shift their motivations from getting votes to getting cushy private sector jobs when they get out.
The trick is, clean energy costs more than dirty energy.
Indeed, it does. And that's what I'm getting it. Fustakrakich said "Just make it more profitable to be clean.", as if everybody wins: businesses make more profits, we all get clean energy, and nothing else changes. But in reality, since you observe that "clean energy" is 3 cents more expensive per kWh, imposing the requirement to use "clean" energy through regulation raises prices, reduces demand, and probably reduces profits. It also reduces actual economic growth, and means that we can buy less for the money we earn. Regulations mandating the use of "clean" energy, as Fustakrakich so cheerily proposes, amounts to little more than a tax on consumption, and a tax whose effect is highly regressive.
Now, maybe you think that's a good thing to do anyway. But such policies shouldn't be hidden behind bullshit like "just make it more profitable to be clean".
Unfortunately, like each nation that would like to see crude production restricted in OPEC, it would be better for them if the other members could make the sacrifice(s).
Most politicians are at an age where AGW simply isn't an issue to them at all, since they are going to be long dead by the time it matters.
So, the questions they are asking are: (1) does this issue bring me votes (or political support in non-democratic nations), and (2) will history remember me for taking on this issue.
As far as (1) is concerned, only to the extent that they can credibly promise doing something without hurting the economy, which limits their options severely. As far as (2) is concerned, that's a weak and risky gamble to take, in particular if it interferes with (1).
This will only happen by appropriately regulating businesses.
That's nonsense. Businesses already have a strong incentive for reducing energy consumption because energy is already expensive, even without regulation.
Unfortunately our governments at best don't have balls to do it and at worst are in the pockets of the businesses they're supposed to be regulating. So instead they give us bullshit arguments about how regulation hurts our freedoms and nothing is done.
Given the regulatory binge that the US government has been on, that's a ridiculous statement. In fact, governments love regulating industry because it gives them power and money; in particular, it gives them the power to pay off corporations they like with favorable regulations, and punish corporations they don't like with unfavorable regulations. Nominally, they do that for our benefit, but in the end, politicians just do it for themselves; it's a massive form of corruption, and idiots like you are calling for more of it.
Since energy is probably the single largest input into most products, businesses already have a strong incentive to reduce energy usage, and have had that incentive since long before carbon taxes and government subsidies for "clean energy".
I trust anybody even moderately familiar with German history understands what the term "Germany" refers in a pre-19th century context. And that is indeed politically and culturally quite relevant to modern Germany.
Not entirely true. The free speech rights of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) were almost identical to the ones we have today.
Yes, except for the fact that hundreds of newspapers were banned. That's not still happening today, AFAIK.
Let me explain: There is this saying that goes "your freedom ends where mine begins".
Don't bother. Bastiat analyzed this much better in "The Law", and there are lots of other philosophers and political scientists who have written about this. You should read them sometimes.
Yes, mob rule is the democracy-hater's term for democracy.
"Democracy" means that the people govern themselves, not that the majority can impose its will on the minority in arbitrary ways. The majority frequently doesn't get its will, in many democracies, because it would violate the intrinsic rights of minorities. When a majority decides to throw a minority into camps, when it restricts free speech rights, when it restricts free association, it violates the principles of democracy, because such decisions are incompatible with democracy.
And before let loose another tu quoque, the US has done plenty of that as well. It's not immediately fatal to democracy and democracies can self-correct.
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, you mean the guy who got completely disgraced due to his plagiarized Ph.D. thesis? Who was booted out as defense secretary? The guy who had to accept third rate EU admin jobs afterwards?
Yes, he was a rising star of German politics. The fact that he was revealed to be a cheating gas bag tells you that it was is family connections, not his skill and intellect, that caused him to succeed.
Yeah, that really makes your point very convincingly.
The usual defense I hear for the laws is that they don't like neoi-nazis and prefer to keep the neo-nazi propaganda illegal.
The relevant paragraphs restrict a lot more than Nazi propaganda. And, sure, as long as you accept the German dogma that those laws are compatible with democracy and free speech, that they simply represent a different and possibly better choice, people are happy. Suggest that current German law is in anything other than a model of democracy and they get mean.
America is a bad example since you have as many if not more extreme right wingers than Germnay.
Based on what? Given that extreme right wingers can't even legally voice their opinions in Germany, how would you even know? Keep in mind that the hotbed of neo-Nazis in Germany is the former East Germany, a part of the country where any right wing tendencies used to be harshly punished.
See Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire: It's illegal in the US as well to say hate speech
No. It is illegal to whip a crowd into a frenzy.
I see an attempt at taking the moral ant hill, so to speak
I see a tu quoque. The fact that Germany does not have free speech, and that limiting free speech in that way is a bad idea, is independent of what the US does or is.
So please, if either country here ranks as an indemocratic one, it'd probably be the one that also ranked as an oligarchy outside of this study
By "the outside study" you mean the Princeton study? It's bullshit.
No, it's just 130 of StGB. And when I say "it could easily abolish", I don't mean that it's politically easy, I mean that it's simply the will of the people, as expressed through their elected leadership, to keep them.
Good thing then that you are here to tell them what it really means.
Snide remarks don't turn an invalid use of a statistic into a valid one.
Yes, it did as interpreted by the courts at the time.
Wow, you just keep making things up.
Of course, people were prosecuted and convicted under these laws in the Weimar Republic. Some of these cases are part of the parliamentary record. Some of them are even art history:
you cannot make a remark in public that glorifies or approves of the Nazis
This isn't just about the restrictions about Nazi-related speech; Germany also makes it illegal to insult people and insult religions, among other things.
then don't think of the Nazis. Think of the Klu Klux Klan.
Germany 1920's - no free speech - the Nazis take over the government.
US 1920's - free speech - there is a strong public backlash against the Klan, and by 1930 it had dwindled from millions of members to political insignificance
So, what did you want me to think about?
They are a different country, and frankly, I don't see why you expect that your view of free speech should be enforced everywhere.
It's not "my view", it's the classical liberal view. And I frankly don't care whether Germany enforces it or not. For all I care, Germany can go back to being a Catholic monarchy if it makes the Germans happy. I'm just pointing out that such laws (1) are a politically bad idea and don't work, and (2) are incompatible with the statement that a country has "free speech".
If you truly are American (as I presume you are), then you should be very familiar with them.
My family emigrated from Germany and I've lived and worked there.
I daresay Germany is far more accepting of free speech than the US on a cultural level
How, then, did nobody from either the KPD or the NSDAP end up in jail for their extremely large volume of speech disturbing the public peace?
I have no idea how many KPD or NSDAP members were thrown in jail for disturbing the public peace, but I suspect it's quite a few. What makes you think it's none? I assume prominent members weren't thrown in jail, both because of prior restraint on speech, and out of political considerations.
In any case, the fact is these laws existed, and they still exist today, and people do get prison sentences under them. For example, someone in Germany a few years ago received a one year jail sentence for insulting Islam.
Yeah, seriously. As just one of the more prominent examples, there was Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. Try doing some digging on the backgrounds of German politicians, and the people on the committees who draft laws. It's fascinating.
I give you that, if Germany is just yet another oligarchy they are much more skillful at hiding it.
Doesn't take a lot of skill, given the way the German educational system and German media are set up. Most Germans know next to nothing about the people who govern them, or about the people with money and power in the country, while being subjected to a constant diet of anti-American and anti-free market rhetoric.
In the here and now Germany is doing just fine (much better than the US I may add).
The press freedom index isn't actually an index of press freedom, it's an index of what reporters in a country believe press freedom to be. The groups aren't comparable between countries, and neither is their assessment.
As to the banning of newspapers, as the article you link notes, most of these were after 1930, when the republic was already on the ropes and in its death-throws. [...] For most of the time the Weimar Republic had a thriving press
Your point being what? You claimed that the laws of the Weimar Republic guaranteed freedom of speech, and they clearly did not.
Slashdot Mirror
No, not at all. Native Americans were decimated under British and Spanish rule; by the time the US was founded, their population, culture, and society was already destroyed.
But you shouldn't fret about this as a British citizen either: while the British empire committed numerous crimes against humanity, the mass killing of Native Americans by European diseases was not something your government actually intended, so I wouldn't call it a genocide. If you want to beat yourself up over it, though, go right ahead; the British empire certainly has done enough other shitty and evil things for you to feel guilty about.
Europeans taking responsibility for deforestation isn't about "atonement", nor is it about something in the distant past. Europe continues to make the choice to keep forest levels at below 10% and use the rest of the land for other, more lucrative purposes; Europe could reforest to natural levels if it decided to and thereby return us to atmospheric carbon levels of rough the mid-20th century. That choice is something Europe should pay for.
Second, Europeans transformed those forests into economic and political power, something you still benefit from today. Since you reap the benefits, you should pay the price for it, the same as you demand from others. In different words, paying back your carbon debt, just like paying back your credit card debt, isn't about "atonement" it is about returning something you took.
Why not? The Russians are far less likely than a US corporation to be successful at corrupting our political process with bogus arguments about how giving them money will "create jobs" and "increase tax revenues" and they are cheap. And paying them something may keep them in politically in line and gives them something to feel proud of.
They both sound like massive crony capitalism to me, so just cut them both.
Unfortunately, any numerical measure, whether GDP or happiness index or whatever, can be manipulated. And once it is used to measure the performance of government, politicians, and economies, it will be manipulated. For example, you can increase the GDP arbitrarily by simply turning traditionally non-economic exchanges (child care, food preparation, etc.) into economic ones.
There is debate as to whether it is a negative at all. And a negative for who? CO2 emissions today cost us nothing. Maybe they'll have costs 50 years down the road, but how do you account for that? How do you account for the fact that some effects of CO2 only have costs contingent on other choices (such as people choosing to live in a flood zone)? Such calculations and estimates are meaningless; they simply reflect the pre-existing biases of the people making them.
The massive deforestation of the European continent (from 90% prehistoric to less than 10% today) has been a huge contributor to carbon in the atmosphere, both due to its initial release and due to its greatly reduced carbon capture over centuries. This is an inconvenient truth for Europeans, because if you take that into account, Europeans would have to massively reduce their carbon emissions in order to pay down their carbon debt. Naturally, Europeans prefer to ignore this massive historical carbon debt and instead pretend as if everybody started with a clean slate a decade or two ago; it's a massive economic and political game, and Europeans aren't playing fair.
Traditional economists are quite aware that externalities exist; they are simply honest enough to admit that they can't quantify them or who is actually bearing those costs. Progressive economists delude themselves into believing that they can quantify these costs, but in the end, they just end up being crony capitalists, forcefully extracting money from the population and giving it to politically favored corporations and sectors.
That's pure speculation. The Middle East had massive climate swings long before fossil fuel use. So, for that matter, did the Americas. Those climate swings caused famine and mass migrations. There is not a shred of evidence that AGW is making things worse. In fact, by historical standards, famine across the world is lower than it has been for as long as we have good data to make comparisons.
Even if that weren't just fiction, it's irrelevant. Syria's problem is that it is a pariah state with few economic and political freedoms; as a result, its people live in poverty and the nation doesn't have anything to trade. If Syria was an economically and politically free country, food wouldn't be a problem even if its entire domestic food production failed.
I mean, what you are saying, in effect, is that the rest of the world should pay massive amounts of money so that economically incompetent dictators can stay in power. If climate change actually does destabilize dictatorships and centrally planned economies because they are incapable of adapting as well as free market economies, all the better as far as I'm concerned.
According to the IPCC report itself, the cost of mitigation is about the same as the cost of adaptation to climate change. But that's under their unusually pessimistic analysis and it's neglecting the fact that money we spend now is more valuable than money we spend a hundred years from now. So, even according to the IPCC, it won't pay for itself.
But, in fact, it will probably do a lot of harm. By reducing economic growth, it will make many countries less able to adapt to climate change, and by effectively subsidizing costly and bad energy technologies it will delay the development of better energy technologies.
I don't see why. With term limits, politicians simply are going to shift their motivations from getting votes to getting cushy private sector jobs when they get out.
Indeed, it does. And that's what I'm getting it. Fustakrakich said "Just make it more profitable to be clean.", as if everybody wins: businesses make more profits, we all get clean energy, and nothing else changes. But in reality, since you observe that "clean energy" is 3 cents more expensive per kWh, imposing the requirement to use "clean" energy through regulation raises prices, reduces demand, and probably reduces profits. It also reduces actual economic growth, and means that we can buy less for the money we earn. Regulations mandating the use of "clean" energy, as Fustakrakich so cheerily proposes, amounts to little more than a tax on consumption, and a tax whose effect is highly regressive.
Now, maybe you think that's a good thing to do anyway. But such policies shouldn't be hidden behind bullshit like "just make it more profitable to be clean".
Most politicians are at an age where AGW simply isn't an issue to them at all, since they are going to be long dead by the time it matters.
So, the questions they are asking are: (1) does this issue bring me votes (or political support in non-democratic nations), and (2) will history remember me for taking on this issue.
As far as (1) is concerned, only to the extent that they can credibly promise doing something without hurting the economy, which limits their options severely. As far as (2) is concerned, that's a weak and risky gamble to take, in particular if it interferes with (1).
That's nonsense. Businesses already have a strong incentive for reducing energy consumption because energy is already expensive, even without regulation.
Given the regulatory binge that the US government has been on, that's a ridiculous statement. In fact, governments love regulating industry because it gives them power and money; in particular, it gives them the power to pay off corporations they like with favorable regulations, and punish corporations they don't like with unfavorable regulations. Nominally, they do that for our benefit, but in the end, politicians just do it for themselves; it's a massive form of corruption, and idiots like you are calling for more of it.
Since energy is probably the single largest input into most products, businesses already have a strong incentive to reduce energy usage, and have had that incentive since long before carbon taxes and government subsidies for "clean energy".
I trust anybody even moderately familiar with German history understands what the term "Germany" refers in a pre-19th century context. And that is indeed politically and culturally quite relevant to modern Germany.
Yes, except for the fact that hundreds of newspapers were banned. That's not still happening today, AFAIK.
Don't bother. Bastiat analyzed this much better in "The Law", and there are lots of other philosophers and political scientists who have written about this. You should read them sometimes.
"Democracy" means that the people govern themselves, not that the majority can impose its will on the minority in arbitrary ways. The majority frequently doesn't get its will, in many democracies, because it would violate the intrinsic rights of minorities. When a majority decides to throw a minority into camps, when it restricts free speech rights, when it restricts free association, it violates the principles of democracy, because such decisions are incompatible with democracy.
And before let loose another tu quoque, the US has done plenty of that as well. It's not immediately fatal to democracy and democracies can self-correct.
Yes, he was a rising star of German politics. The fact that he was revealed to be a cheating gas bag tells you that it was is family connections, not his skill and intellect, that caused him to succeed.
I think it does.
The relevant paragraphs restrict a lot more than Nazi propaganda. And, sure, as long as you accept the German dogma that those laws are compatible with democracy and free speech, that they simply represent a different and possibly better choice, people are happy. Suggest that current German law is in anything other than a model of democracy and they get mean.
Based on what? Given that extreme right wingers can't even legally voice their opinions in Germany, how would you even know? Keep in mind that the hotbed of neo-Nazis in Germany is the former East Germany, a part of the country where any right wing tendencies used to be harshly punished.
No. It is illegal to whip a crowd into a frenzy.
I see a tu quoque. The fact that Germany does not have free speech, and that limiting free speech in that way is a bad idea, is independent of what the US does or is.
By "the outside study" you mean the Princeton study? It's bullshit.
No, it's just 130 of StGB. And when I say "it could easily abolish", I don't mean that it's politically easy, I mean that it's simply the will of the people, as expressed through their elected leadership, to keep them.
Snide remarks don't turn an invalid use of a statistic into a valid one.
Wow, you just keep making things up.
Of course, people were prosecuted and convicted under these laws in the Weimar Republic. Some of these cases are part of the parliamentary record. Some of them are even art history:
http://www.moma.org/collection...
This isn't just about the restrictions about Nazi-related speech; Germany also makes it illegal to insult people and insult religions, among other things.
Germany 1920's - no free speech - the Nazis take over the government.
US 1920's - free speech - there is a strong public backlash against the Klan, and by 1930 it had dwindled from millions of members to political insignificance
So, what did you want me to think about?
It's not "my view", it's the classical liberal view. And I frankly don't care whether Germany enforces it or not. For all I care, Germany can go back to being a Catholic monarchy if it makes the Germans happy. I'm just pointing out that such laws (1) are a politically bad idea and don't work, and (2) are incompatible with the statement that a country has "free speech".
My family emigrated from Germany and I've lived and worked there.
I daresay you're wrong.
As usual, you're confusing mob rule and democracy.
I have no idea how many KPD or NSDAP members were thrown in jail for disturbing the public peace, but I suspect it's quite a few. What makes you think it's none? I assume prominent members weren't thrown in jail, both because of prior restraint on speech, and out of political considerations.
In any case, the fact is these laws existed, and they still exist today, and people do get prison sentences under them. For example, someone in Germany a few years ago received a one year jail sentence for insulting Islam.
Yeah, seriously. As just one of the more prominent examples, there was Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. Try doing some digging on the backgrounds of German politicians, and the people on the committees who draft laws. It's fascinating.
Doesn't take a lot of skill, given the way the German educational system and German media are set up. Most Germans know next to nothing about the people who govern them, or about the people with money and power in the country, while being subjected to a constant diet of anti-American and anti-free market rhetoric.
The press freedom index isn't actually an index of press freedom, it's an index of what reporters in a country believe press freedom to be. The groups aren't comparable between countries, and neither is their assessment.
Your point being what? You claimed that the laws of the Weimar Republic guaranteed freedom of speech, and they clearly did not.
I suggest just getting it over with and making one emoji for every Chinese character. We can then smoothly transition to writing in pure emoji.